Queen B

Posts Tagged ‘remodel’

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Hard Labor

In Big time stuff, Nothing to it but to do it, The dog on January 27, 2012 at 1:27 pm

This weekend should revolve around drywall – hanging, taping and mudding. Using objectionable language towards it, probably.

I hear we’re expecting snow, so there will likely be shoveling.

We will also probably be dragging more of our useless or unused crap to the Goodwill. Multiple trips, I’m assuming.

The children shall clean their rooms. I don’t care if it’s begrudgingly, or happily. That should be a fun argument for all involved.

Did I really wait all week to get off of work for this?

So what are you doing this weekend? Cleaning toilets? Yea, me too.

Before I go, somebody wants to say HI!

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Nosey always wants to know what I’m doing.

Speaking of, she needs to be brushed and have her toenails trimmed.  Should be as fun as getting children to clean willingly, or well.  Yea, me!

There will probably be wine involved in all of the above (except for the kids part, obviously).

Enjoy your weekend, all.  Don’t blink, or you might miss it!

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Bad news, people

In Nothing to it but to do it, Who comes up with this stuff? on March 15, 2010 at 4:00 pm

Well…. my last post was painfully wrong.  My babysitter is completely available for spring break, so I guess I’ll have to cancel my big trip to Cabo.  Damn.  Instead, I get to work Monday through Wednesday.  I have dug in my heels and I will not budge, so we’re still going down to the farm Wednesday night or Thursday morning through Saturday rather than Sunday, since we also realized that Easter falls on that weekend.  Duh.  It’s so difficult making plans sometimes when you’re such geniuses as my friend and I apparently are.  Do not assume that this very compelling saga of my spring break plans is over, I’m sure there will be future dumb-ass developments.

In other news, I had a decent weekend.  You?  I moved the hulking dark hutch from my kitchen to the dining room (which, coincidentally, is the room it came from before the kitchen…), and cleaned it out to boot.  I dyed my hair, finally.  That was weeks, maybe months, in the making.  I helped my girl sell Girl Scout cookies on Sunday before her piano lessons.  I was concerned about doing it, because it really seems to aggravate my back when I’m standing, especially on concrete, but it wasn’t too bad.  What was bad is that all of these plans ran in succession and I hate rushing around from one thing to another.  I blame my husband, of course.  He sprung forward on all of our clocks but the one at my bedside, and so at 1:00pm I very naively thought I had two hours to get to the cookie shop at 2:00pm, and decided that after months of putting it off I needed to dye my hair.  Right now.  It was right after I applied the dye, when I went to set the timer on the microwave in the kitchen, that I realized that it was now time for me to leave for the cookie shop.  Right now.  Yeah, I was a couple minutes late, and with wet as opposed to fabulous hair.

My husband ripped out a wall in the basement suddenly and unexpectedly on Saturday.  Unfortunately I wasn’t notified in advance, so I didn’t have time to remove or box up the crap behind the wall.  So now it’s a mess covered in demolition debris, and I still need to box it up.  It’s like someone pulled back the curtain on the Wizard or something and all of my disorganized chaos that was previously my own dirty little secret is just out there for everyone to see.  And judge.  And it’s covered in dust to boot.  Crap.  The only people who go down there are me, my kids, my husband, and the girls who come over for Monday night band practice.  Which is tonight.  Is it strange that I’m concerned about being judged by tweens freshly minted teens?  Seriously, I know.  It is.  I do not have the time to start being “not crazy” right now, though, because I have a lot of stuff to pack up before 5:30.

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Stuff is happening

In Nothing to it but to do it on February 25, 2010 at 5:24 pm

I just couldn’t wait any longer to post.  Yes, technically the Olympics are still in full swing, but it’s been kinda slow, what with the ice dancing and the ski jumping taking up most of the screen time with an occasional bobsled run thrown in for good measure.  In addition, I have some guilt issues.  I know that I haven’t posted, and I didn’t plan to post until after the Olympics, because I truly planned on obsessively watching the Olympics and not doing much else.  What’s interesting about that?  Then every day I think about posting, and how I didn’t.  And then I feel like maybe I should…. but I don’t, which makes me have anxiety, which in turn makes me think about it even more, and worry, and, well…. you know.  It’s a vicious cycle of guilt and worry that I just couldn’t take any more.  And here I am!  You realize that I truly AM my own worst enemy, don’t you?  Thanks for letting me put my crazy on you all for a minute.  Because, like, so many people are out there on pins and needles thinking that their lives just aren’t complete unless I ramble excessively about the Olympics some more!  I know.

On that note, I have completely missed all curling events to date, which kind of ticks me off.  One of my little people told me it was on yesterday but by the time I ran into the room it was already back to Costas yammering on about I-don’t-know-what.  Nothing that I was interested in listening to, that’s what.  OH, and get this!!  I’m not naming any names, but another one of my little people turned off the ACTUAL OLYMPICS to watch that MOVIE about the hockey team who won the gold medal in the OLYMPICS in 1980 at Lake Placid!!  Does that make any sense?  Movies are made to be watched ANY OTHER TIME THAN WHEN THE OLYMPICS ARE AVAILABLE TO BE WATCHED LIVE.  The same rule applies to the Disney channel.  Are you listening, small people?!

Although I love and am obsessively watching the Olympics, I did not want anyone to worry that I was doing absolutely nothing else for the entire two weeks the Olympics are running.  I’m doing stuff.  Like catching pink-eye, for one.  That’s definitely something.  I have also made it to work almost every day.  Not my fault if the school has days off during the Olympics, and I’m forced to stay home.  I’m just sayin’.  I’ve had two MAJOR trees removed from my yard by what turned out to be monkey-men who don’t believe in ladders.  I baked cookies, er, cookie bars.  We got fish, and we named them.  And then there was that one day that I read that you could make regular old popcorn in a plain brown paper lunch bag in the microwave instead of buying microwave popcorn!!!  Yes, it’s true.  I spent a lot of time testing that one out.  A LOT OF TIME.  You know, because we love popcorn with our Olympics.  I almost went ballistic when we missed some of the speed skating because we attended the car show at McCormick Place and got home later than planned.  How many of you were there on the final Saturday of the car show in Chicago?  Did you by chance catch pink eye while you were there?  Sorry, but I touched everything.  You should have kept your fingers out of your eyes, what can I tell you?!

Oh, and I turned this….

And this….

Into this (!!!) …

And went on to make the rest of the space around it look like this….

Alright, and I admit that I watched Survivor.  Because, you know, BOSTON ROB!!  Oh my gosh, I feel so much better.

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Doing it ourselves

In Nothing to it but to do it on February 12, 2010 at 12:20 am

In case you didn’t realize, I have thrown in the towel on the whole water experiment.  I decided that I was too lazy to have gallons of water refilled out of town when I had zero changes in how I feel, look or act related to my choice in water.  Add to that the fact that the woman giving me the water told me that the oxidation reduction potential of the water (one of the supposed benefits) only lasts three days, so I would have had to refill two plus times per week.  Annoying!  I just can’t make that level of commitment when I have a tap in roughly 40% of the rooms of my home.

Speaking of, we’ve committed to some projects at the house, keeping me away from the computer.  For my part, I decided that the fireplace in the living room absolutely must be painted, because I just could not live on any further with black grout on dark, semi-whitewashed seventies brick.  What really happened is that after years of bitching and moaning and serious and constant badgering, I have worn my husband down.  Besides which, we have five… yes, FIVE different shades of brick in this place and losing our least favorite certainly won’t hurt anyone.  As all improvement projects tend to go, it’s turned into a snowball.  The brick is now AWESOME, but it makes the wall color look weird, so I am trying to repaint the walls.  I never, ever, ever pick paint correctly the first time, so this is a ridiculously unnecessary multi step process teetering far too close to becoming a chemistry experiment than necessary.  I’m considering asking if I could just set up a cot at the home improvement store so that I could just stay.  These additional steps could be easily avoided with a bit of planning, which is not my strongest area, obviously.  I promise that once I have the colors tweaked, the tarps off of the floor, and the room put back together I’ll post some before/during/after shots.

My husband, on the other hand, is working on the basement.  He is inspired by the band jams that my son has now organized for Monday nights, and has begun the long process of finishing the previously partially finished basement.  Step number one included getting the fish tank set up, which was absolutely a non necessity.  Whatever!!!  We have yet to commit to some fish, but the water is moving through the system.  He has since started adding insulation to the concrete walls to try to warm the place up, funded by the money made on ebay selling off the skimmer that came with the tank.  Way to go Craig!!  Left to me, it was all going on freecycle.  It’s amazing the difference a 2″ piece of extruded polystyrene makes to the touch!  I am very excited and looking forward to making a great space down there.  It will double the usable space in the house.

Note to self, remove all beer from the basement fridge, asap.

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